Mistakes to Avoid When Writing TOS
by WeirdLittleStories
Summary: An essay, not a fic. A number of people write TOS stories because Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are so iconic or so delicious or so wonderful, even though their understanding of Star Trek comes mostly from The Next Generation or another of the Star Trek series. To keep your story within TOS boundaries, here are a few things to keep in mind. Updated with new items & clarifications.
1. Chapter 1

**Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Stories Set in the Universe of The Original Series**

A number of people write TOS stories because Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are so iconic or so delicious or so wonderful, even though their understanding of _Star Trek _comes mostly from _The Next Generation _or _Deep Space Nine _or another of the Star Trek series. To keep your story within TOS boundaries, here are a few things to keep in mind.

**Update: **Thanks to **Sophiedog** for suggesting the item about the ready room, to **Guest** for suggesting the item about Kirk's sexuality, and to **Kirarakim **for the reminder about "All Our Yesterdays." I've also reworded the item about Vulcan body temperature to better convey what I was trying to say.

All of the items below are intended to be helpful for those who want to get their TOS trivia correct while they're writing stories; nothing here is meant to rain on anyone's parade. I mean, you can make Kirk purple and Spock red and McCoy green if you want to - it's FAN FICTION, after all. ;-) But people who like Star Trek often also like facts, so here are a few such facts that might make things easier for writers who DO want their stories to be accurate depictions of the TOS world.

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**1. TOS has LANDING PARTIES, not away teams.**

"Away team" and "away mission" are terms that came into use only AFTER the original series went off the air in 1969; what we had at the time of the original series was landing parties.

You can choose a landing party, equip a landing party, beam down a landing party, strand a landing party, lose contact with your landing party, have them stuck in one of the ubiquitous caves or troubled by the even-more-ubiquitous ion storms - or get them into terrible trouble in some _new _way (for which, yay!). But don't do any of this to an "away team" on an "away mission," because TOS didn't call them that.

**2. There are no replicators in TOS.**

At the time of the original series, the _Enterprise_ had **food synthesizers. **Replicators are a later technology, so they were not yet available. You can make the food synthesizers produce any FOOD you like, but they can't make uniforms, equipment, or other items.

You can have the _Enterprise _make or carry whatever you wish; it's clear they have the ability, for example, to make costumes for a variety of purposes. Just don't say that whatever-it-is came out of a replicator.

**3. In addition to being the First Officer, Spock is also the SCIENCE Officer.**

I've seen stories where the authors make Spock ignorant of basic human anatomy, ignorant of the facts of reproduction in humans, ignorant of how two men have sex, ignorant of all sorts of things that Spock would definitely know.

In TOS, Spock shows himself to be an expert in all of the natural sciences, including Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, as well as an expert in Computer Science. He also appears to be familiar with the social sciences, such as Psychology, Sociology, and Political Science. And even though they're not sciences, Spock has shown himself conversant with History, Music, Literature — even Folklore — and the list of his knowledge and expertise goes on ... and on.

This is a man who knows all about quadrotriticale, who can recognize Brahms' handwriting when he sees it, who can lecture on the role of familiars in magical practice, who can recognize Nazi uniforms at a glance, who can recommend a particular type of heart operation when his father needs one. Having him be surprised — for example — that human testicles are external is simply not believable. Spock almost certainly knows more about human anatomy and physiology than Kirk does.

You can make Spock surprised that he is putting his knowledge to personal use, because he never expected to be doing whatever you're having him do. You can make him have trouble with the emotional implications of the course of action you're having him embark on. But making him ignorant of facts is not believable; Spock knows more or less everything.

**4. No one shrieks "Captain on the Bridge" when Kirk walks onto the Bridge.**

Kirk exits the turbolift and takes his chair without fanfare, except in as much as Shatner's every step is a fanfare. (Kirk is self-consciously a HERO, and Shatner wants us to know that. :-D)

**5. There's no "ready room" just off the Bridge.**

Short consultations between only a few people take place on the Bridge itself; longer meetings or consultations that involve more than a few people take place in the conference room. (The _Enterprise _was redesigned between the time when Kirk was in charge of her and the time when Picard got her, so the _Enterprise-D_ has a lot of features that the original _Enterprise_ doesn't have.)

**6. Kirk is a bit of a ladies' man, yes, but he uses his sexuality as a tool at least as often as he's involved in real relationships or in recreational sexuality.**

We often see Kirk kissing some woman he just met five minutes ago, which proves that he's a total sex maniac, right? Um, no. :-)

Kirk does appreciate women, but a lot of Kirk's seductions are intended to accomplish a mission-related goal, such as to distract the woman, to secure her help, to gain more information about the situation, and so on. For example, he kisses Andrea in "What Are Little Girls Made Of" to try to confuse her and to gain her loyalty. He flirts with Miri in the episode of the same name in order to soothe her fears and to get her on their side. He kisses Sylvia in "Catspaw" to try to get information out of her. He kisses Marlena in "Mirror, Mirror" partly to maintain his cover and partly to gain her as an ally. Kelinda in "By Any Other Name," Shahana in "Gamesters of Triskelion" ... the list of women Kirk seduces in order to further **non**-sexual ends goes on and on. It's clear that Kirk's sexuality is a weapon as potent as his phaser. ;-) But using his charisma for instrumental purposes is very different from being driven by his sexuality.

**7. Spock doesn't fall apart when it's cold. (We have very little data about a Vulcan's normal body temperature, so please don't tell authors that it's been proven to be higher — it could just as easily be lower. What is clear is that cold isn't especially debilitating for him.)**

There's no definitive data on this, but what little data we do have says that Vulcan body temperature is lower than that of humans.

There was a fan-made publication called _Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual _that posited that Vulcan body temperature was 91F/32.78C. While most fan-made publications are considered non-canon, Paramount used several entries from this particular book in subsequent series, making the book ... still non-canon but closer than most fan works.

If you want the Vulcans in your story to have a higher body temperature, you can certainly write them that way — the data we have are, as I said, NOT definitive. However, no one should castigate authors who incorporate a lower temperature into their stories, because they're at least as likely to be right. Vulcan THE PLANET is hotter; that doesn't mean that Vulcans THE PEOPLE are hotter.

Regardless of whether Spock's normal body temperature is higher or lower than that of humans, what IS clear is that cold doesn't debilitate Spock unduly. In the episode "All Our Yesterdays," Spock is still functioning well when McCoy is lying in the snow, urging him to go on without him, because McCoy's done for. McCoy has frostbite on both his hands and his face, and he can't feel his feet, so Spock hauls McCoy up out of the snow and drags him to Zarabeth's cave. This is not the portrait of a Vulcan who crumbles when the temperature drops. :-)

**8. There are 430 people on the **_**Enterprise**_**.**

At the time of the original five-year mission under James T. Kirk, the _Enterprise_ had a complement of 430 crew. Not 200, not 1100. 430.

**9. Spock knows when to call Kirk "Captain" and when to call him "Jim."**

A large percentage of fan stories have Kirk telling Spock to call him "Jim" instead of "Captain." Spock's a smart guy, and he's also more sensitive to context than one might expect of a Vulcan — until one reflects that this particular Vulcan spent four years at Starfleet Academy, eleven years serving under Captain Christoper Pike, plus some more years serving under Captain Kirk. He's had ample opportunity to observe human ways, and he calls Kirk "Jim" when it's appropriate without prompting. (Unless, of course, he's recently died and been revived, in which case there are a lot of things he doesn't know. :-D)

**10. Spock uses his hands all day, every day, at his console. He also plays the lute.**

This suggests that the merest touch on his hands will NOT send him into transports of ecstasy. The whole Vulcan-hands-are-sensitive thing IS fun — I get that — but let's inject a bit of believability, okay?

**11. The **_**Enterprise**_** is extremely well equipped and has FOURTEEN scientific laboratories.**

I saw one author send Spock to "the Science Room." The _Enterprise_ is not your local high school! It doesn't have a Science Room; in the TOS episode "Operation - Annihilate", we learned that it has FOURTEEN fully equipped and very busy LABORATORIES.

If you don't know enough about science to send your Spock to the lab, you might want to keep your Spock on the Bridge. ;-)

Other common mistakes you'd like me to add to this? I'm tempted to add that "prone" means lying face DOWN, and the word for lying face UP is "supine," but that's vocabulary, not TOS facts, so I'll desist. ;-)

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**Author's Note: **

I was a serious Star Trek fan from 1969 until 1986, when I moved in with a man who thought television was the root of all evil. I've recently reclaimed my interest in Star Trek, but my peculiar history means that I'm very familiar with the episodes of TOS, but I've never seen any of the other Star Trek series, since The Next Generation didn't start until a year after I'd moved in with Mr. No-TV-In-My-House. (I'll be working on that, don't worry. ;-D)

I thought my unusual history made me uniquely situated to remind people about what the boundaries of TOS are, which is why I wrote this little reminder. It's not that I think I know everything, just that I haven't been confused by the vast array of other Star Trek stuff out there. :-D

Supporting data for the assertions in this essay can be found not just in my head but also in **Memory Alpha**, the Star Trek wiki. This site doesn't allow direct links, but put "Memory Alpha" into Google, and you'll find it. I recommend the Memory Alpha to authors who want to check facts; there's an enormous amount of information in it.


	2. A note about the updates

**Update**: Thanks to **Sophiedog** for suggesting the item about the ready room, to **Guest **for suggesting the item about Kirk's sexuality, and to **Kirarakim** for the reminder about "All Our Yesterdays." I've also reworded the item about Vulcan body temperature to better convey what I was trying to say all along.


End file.
